


reste avec toi, pense à toi

by hannamoon



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: AKA the two quickest ways to inès' heart, But only in a brief flashback, Early Relationship, Eugene!backstory, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Non-Consensual Kissing, Not nearly as sexy as the summary suggests, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28067787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannamoon/pseuds/hannamoon
Summary: Eugene and Rapunzel share a night of small firsts.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	reste avec toi, pense à toi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kingrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingrey/gifts).



> hi hello this is a gift for my best friend inès!! have a merry christmas and a happy new year or i'll fly over there and make u!! okay bye love u!
> 
> content warning: there's a very small flashback scene that implies a noncon kiss but you can easily skip it and believe the white lie eugene tells rapunzel instead if you prefer
> 
> title from love language by connor price ft. evelyne brochu

The creaking of the door doesn’t startle him like it used to. Before, he’d have been up on his feet before glancing the other way, knowing someone had found him in the barn he’d camped out in for the night, or an angry spouse had arrived home earlier than his date suggested. 

But now he barely stirs, and smiles softly into his pillow as the princess of Corona tries to quietly shut his squeaky door. 

“Eugene?” she whispers. 

He only rolls over in response, his arm stretching across the bed seconds before Rapunzel drops beside him and curls into his chest as he knew she would. His nightly routines have always been dependent on his current situation, and despite the security of the castle, the unpredictable nature of his girlfriend meant at least nothing much there had changed. Whether it was her sneaking into his room at odd hours of the night or urging him up for some adventure, he never knew what to expect from her. 

She pokes at his shirt. “Are you asleep?”

“Yep.” Turning his head, he hides his smile in her hair.

“Should I go?”

He tightens his grip in response, her nightgown creasing where his hand presses firmly at her back, and he tries not to think too hard about the way her breath skates over his collarbone as she laughs. The tiredness that had been dragging him under moments ago is fading quickly in her presence, his heart beating much too quickly. 

She affects him too much, he thinks. Or perhaps he just never knew what it meant to feel alive, despite how desperately he chased it.

“I was wondering,” she says, propping herself up on his chest now that she’s content to stay, “when was your first kiss?”

This is one of those questions where he nearly thinks he’s in trouble, but he’s learned that often Rapunzel doesn’t state her intentions outright.

She confessed to him, once, how everyone around her seemed to skirt around her questions—her parents didn’t want to discuss their daughter’s captor, her tutors didn’t want to explain the components behind their instructions, her handmaidens seemed to cast glances behind her back. Eugene had half a mind to confront each and every one of them, but he selfishly enjoys being her main informant. These days, it’s the only use he really has.

Besides, no one has listened so intently to his stories in years.

“I was thirteen,” he begins. 

His first year out of the orphanage, and it was going about as horribly as he could’ve imagined. Thieving, as he discovered, required skills he didn’t quite possess yet, though he was quickly making up for it through false confidence. 

It had been Lance’s idea to case the tavern. He was meant to be the distraction, using what he continued to claim were impeccable acting skills, but had been thrown out in under fifteen minutes. Which left Eugene to work on his own. To his credit, he did swipe a fair bounty of coins before the barmaid caught him by the arm, his hand raised high in the air as if he was her prize.

“What have you got there, Vanessa?” the old bartender crooned. 

“Just a boy.” She looked disappointed.

He’s not sure why he said it—some combination of fear and the desire to prove that he was worth something. “I’m not a _boy_. I-I’m a man.”

Her eyes glinted, and the conversation escalated before he realised what had begun, goaded by the bartender and the bellowing of the patrons sober enough to follow along. The sound of it all reverberated through Eugene’s head, alarmingly not getting through to him until the barmaid planted her hands on his cheeks and leaned in. 

“...and I had no idea what I was doing,” he tells Rapunzel instead. “Definitely the worst kiss of all time, however if you tell _anyone_ that I will deny it vehemently.” He smiles, and nearly sighs in relief when she returns it. “Why do you ask, sunshine?”

She ducks her head a bit, and he takes the chance to brush back her hair and gaze at her unabashedly, never so thankful that she was the one in his arms. 

“I overheard some handmaidens talking and... there was really nothing normal about my life, was there? I mean, I know I missed out on some things, but every day that list just seems to grow bigger and bigger...” She trails off, burrowing back into his chest and murmuring something he doesn’t quite catch. 

“Hm, yes, I would say being a long lost princess certainly isn’t normal.”

He smooths a hand down her back, prodding her side a bit to make it clear he’s joking, but she doesn’t perk up as she normally does. Doesn’t grin and tease him back. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” he continues. “ _None_ of that is your fault. And from what I’ve seen, you’ve made more out of life than anyone these past few weeks, your lousy handmaidens included.”

Rapunzel finally looks up. “You think so?”

“Definitely. Besides, I’m really the last person you should ever compare your life to. I’m sure your first kiss was _much_ better than mine.”

As she blushes, he can feel the spark come back to her. It thrums through her, as familiar of a feeling as her hand in his or the way his heart skips a beat in his chest. He’s already grinning in anticipation of her retort. 

“It was okay,” she says at last, and Eugene can see her trying not to smile.

He narrows his eyes in warning a second before he flips them, careful not to put his weight on her as she adjusts to the quick movement. Her hands find purchase against his chest and he leans in, kissing her gently despite his actions, making sure she knows she’s still in control. He refuses to be another person to take away her autonomy.

But Rapunzel surprises him, sliding her hands up and around to pull him closer, parting her lips for him to properly kiss her. They stay there for a while, until they’re both breathless and flushed. He eventually pulls away to press small kisses to her shoulder, carefully transferring his weight back to the mattress, not once letting her out of his arms. 

He raises an eyebrow at her. “Does that one suffice then?”

With a laugh, she nods and reaches up to plant a last kiss on his nose, which makes him grin. Her hands find their way under his shirt as she repositions herself beside him, and as her breathing slows, he thinks this is where they’ll stay tonight.

He’s long since accepted that there’s no point in turning Rapunzel from his room—there’s irony to be found there, he’s sure, that he tricked and persuaded his way to becoming the most wanted thief in the seven kingdoms and now one look from her can completely break his resolve. Not that he particularly minds.

But she stirs only a few moments later, tilting her head back to look at him. 

“Was your second kiss any better?” she asks. 

Thoughts of Stalyan fill his head, and he shakes them away before they can sneak into his dreams. He’s woken up in a panic more than enough times to need to relive his naïve infatuation with a girl who took his love only to misuse it.

“Not particularly, no. Why?”

She frowns, brushing away the hair falling into his eyes. “I don’t like thinking of you as unhappy.”

“You know,” he says slowly, “at the time, I thought my life was pretty damn good. Sure, I had some ups and downs, but I thought that was just the price of living life on the edge. It wasn’t really until I, well, I met you that it hit me. That _this_ is what it’s meant to feel like.”

The realisation dawns on him as he speaks it, but once it’s out in the air, he’s certain he’s never gotten anything more right. He hates the vulnerability of it, but Rapunzel is gazing at him softly, a world of kindness in her eyes, and for the first time he thinks that maybe he deserves it. Maybe he can finally belong here, with her. 

“I think I know what you mean.” 

He tries to lean in and kiss her again, but Rapunzel holds firm, her hands soft where the’ve made their way to his cheeks as she strokes small circles on his skin. 

“You saved my life,” she adds. 

“I’m pretty sure it was the other way around, sunshine.”

She looks as if she’ll disagree, but in her distraction, Eugene manages to reach her lips this time. His lips barely graze hers before he’s smiling, and he feels her echo his actions before he pulls back to kiss every inch of her face he can reach. Rapunzel’s laughing by the time he returns to her lips, kissing for her a final time and wrapping her securely back in his arms. The exhaustion is starting to hit him, but he doesn’t want to miss a moment of her.

Lying together in the dark, she resumes tracing patterns into his skin, as she’s formed a fast habit of. Her movements slow as the minutes pass, and he can feel himself drifting from the warmth of her embrace.

“Eugene?” she asks, for the second time that night.

“Yeah, sunshine?”

She pauses, then whispers for the first time, “I love you.”

It’s not her words that shock him, but the complete ease that he feels when she does. He’s known he loves her for a while now—how could he not, she’s the best person he’s ever known—but he’s also been cruelly taught the harsh difference between loving someone and being loved. Precisely, that there’s no one who truly has before, at least not for who he is.

He’s not scared this time, though, that Rapunzel will abandon him like everyone else. No, he think his long history with misery has finally come to its end. So the words spill confidently from his lips, smiling in the dark.

“I love you, too.”


End file.
